Cardboard rehab: TCG/CCG thread

[commandercool]

Pretty sure the victim of a flickered Fiend Hunter/Oblivion Ring/whatever is gone for good. People used to do that to me aaaaall the time when Oblivion Ring first came out and Momentary Blink was in standard with it.

Edit: I was playing monogreen Treefolk at the time too, so I was super weak to it. I miss Dauntless Dourbark.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Beautiful. It's like an Oblivion Ring but better.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

If you're splashing black anyway I'd maybe go for a single Grave Titan; flickering it would give you a chance to get a lot of tokens on the board. Other fun stuff to flicker would be Sandsteppe Outcast or Eldrazi Skyspawner to get two creatures at once.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Eldrazi Skyspawner and Blight Herder were actually in the Standard flicker deck idea I had! Of course, with the more expansive list of flicker capabilities I have in Modern, they'd work much better here. Sandsteppe Outcast has potential too.

Grave Titan, however... I'm not sure. I only have 5 black mana in the deck, and this deck already seems to be pretty consistent at meeting potential win conditions by turn 6-9-- so my chances of getting it out would be really super super steep-- certainly not one I'd keep in an opening hand unless I already pulled 2 black mana sources in my initial draw. It's an amazing card, but I don't think it would fit that well here.

For a relevant example, I had 2 Archangel Avacyn in this deck with 13 white sources, and I never once managed to cast her-- and she costs one less.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

Eldrazi Skyspawner and Blight Herder were actually in the Standard flicker deck idea I had! Of course, with the more expansive list of flicker capabilities I have in Modern, they'd work much better here. Sandsteppe Outcast has potential too.

Grave Titan, however... I'm not sure. I only have 5 black mana in the deck, and this deck already seems to be pretty consistent at meeting potential win conditions by turn 6-9-- so my chances of getting it out would be really super super steep-- certainly not one I'd keep in an opening hand unless I already pulled 2 black mana sources in my initial draw. It's an amazing card, but I don't think it would fit that well here.

For a relevant example, I had 2 Archangel Avacyn in this deck with 13 white sources, and I never once managed to cast her-- and she costs one less.

Yeah, Grave Titan probably isn't the ideal fit for this deck. I kind of forgot Blight Herder but it would probably be pretty impressive given how many exile effects you have to set it off.

I'm busy finding ways to tune up my monogreen deck; I kind of need to improve my matchups; looking at more protection against removal like Ranger's Guile or Alpha Authority, Obstinate Baloth for forced discard effects, Relic of Progenitus and Scavenging Ooze for the Tarmogoyf matchup... can't really figure out a good solution for Tron decks other than "try to get in for lethal before Wurmcoil or Ulamog drops"

[MatsuriSakuragi]

After a weekend visit with my friend, we've both decided to start playing Pauper-- and I myself am going to tone it down on Modern, which is in kind of a worrying state right now. Shit's expensive enough in Modern (I spent over $110 on pieces of my flicker deck this weekend), but now with the announcement that Modern PT will be no more and hopes are being driven up for mass unbannings in Modern, I'm seriously tempted to drop out of it, because if that's all true, then it's going to become even more bland and uncreative.

So comes in Pauper-- "tier 1" decks are super cheap, and there's *far* more viable homebrewing potential that won't be utterly ripped to shreds by ridiculously broken netdecks.

So I have done some research and have decided that I'm going to get invested in that. I already have a few decks that I want to start making!

1. Grixis Delver Blitz (Delver of Secrets/Gurmag Angler/Kiln Fiend/Nivix Cyclops)-- I ended up buying some Ponders and Preordains and Gitaxian Probes today, because god help me if I'm not going to take every opportunity I can to use the stupidly good banned cantrips in a deck. And I got some Delvers too. This is mostly just a combined mirror of decks used against me in the past.
2. Dimir/Grixis Affinity -- Even if I can't use my Modern Affinity staples, I CAN use the artifact lands and Nim Shrieker, which works as if it had a Cranial Plating. Or I could take the stereotypical Atog Fling combo and wreck even faster.
3. Mono-Green Tron ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko5k7FVgSMM ) -- This deck just looks fun as hell. And I found Urza lands for a dollar a piece this weekend. Score!
4. Flicker Control -- A Pauper translation of my beloved Modern homebrew. Essence Flux, Eldrazi Displacer, and Flickerwisp are obviously out, so that means I must be more creative, and I look forward to bringing my favorite mechanic to life. Probably will be Esper colors with a focus on black monsters, for the sake of flickering Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Chittering Rats.
5. Sacrifice Sisters -- I'm not sure if I can do this, but if there's a Common equivalent of Blood Artist, I have a really fun idea. Play Soul Sisters and Suture Priest for lifegain and opponent damage. Make a lot of tokens (and if there's a card that gives the opponent a lot of tokens, even better!). Put a Blood Artist equivalent down, and nuke EVERYTHING with a Shrivel. It's a fun concept, I feel, because it's resistant to burn and aggro (tons of life and lots of blockers that I WANT to have killed), which is very common in Pauper.

[commandercool]

I found Pauper to be extremely rigid with only a very limited number of viable decks, but I haven't played it in years. Last time I looked at it you played Storm or you played a dedicated anti-Storm deck or you lost before you could do anything. But I think a lot of the Storm stuff is banned now, or else enough new stuff has come out to open it up. I don't know if anyone hosts it around here, but I could stand to try it again I guess.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Grapeshot is banned, for what it's worth. Thank god.

EDIT:
Full Ban List

Cloud of Faeries
Cloudpost
Cranial Plating
Empty the Warrens
Frantic Search
Grapeshot
Invigorate
Temporal Fissure
Treasure Cruise

Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot, and Temporal Fissure are dead storm cards. Rest in pieces.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

I haven't really seen a local pauper scene in the area where I live but if I learn there is one I can probably adjust my mono-green deck to use solely commons. Garruk's Companion interests me as a pauper substitute for Avatar of the Resolute and I have some copies of Young Wolf I can probably put in.

Due to the May FNM promo of Goblin Warchief I'm really interested in building some kind of goblin deck; thinking of either a commander deck utilizing Krenko, Mob Boss or some kind of mono-red aggro deck for casual Modern.

[commandercool]

Grapeshot is banned, for what it's worth. Thank god.

EDIT:
Full Ban List

Cloud of Faeries
Cloudpost
Cranial Plating
Empty the Warrens
Frantic Search
Grapeshot
Invigorate
Temporal Fissure
Treasure Cruise

Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot, and Temporal Fissure are dead storm cards. Rest in pieces.

Yeah, Temporal Fissure was definitely the big problem when I tried it briefly. I don't know if Grapeshot and Empty The Warrens were already banned then or not, I don't remember, but every deck was just built around Temporal Fissuring all your land on like turn three.

I haven't really seen a local pauper scene in the area where I live but if I learn there is one I can probably adjust my mono-green deck to use solely commons. Garruk's Companion interests me as a pauper substitute for Avatar of the Resolute and I have some copies of Young Wolf I can probably put in.

Due to the May FNM promo of Goblin Warchief I'm really interested in building some kind of goblin deck; thinking of either a commander deck utilizing Krenko, Mob Boss or some kind of mono-red aggro deck for casual Modern.

I've never seen goblin Commander work. Mono-red is the absolute worst color option in my opinion. It's not impossible to get it to work, but it takes a LOT of effort. Too many things it just can't do naturally.

[Iryan]

Pauper eh? Some time ago, when a friend wanted me to try it, I made a RW Arcane deck. I didn't look up anything beforehand, but apparently arcane is a very viable archetype? At any rate the deck seemed to do very well. Not sure if it would do well in a tournament, but if I made some more adjustment, it might. Probably just replacing the Soul of Magma with something else (Kiln Fiend?), and then some minor tweaks to the rest like adding some artifact/Enchantment hate. Also no sideboard because eh.  :V
--- Creatures
4x Lantern Kami
3x Kami of False Hope
3x Waxmane Baku
2x Soul of Magma
--- Spells
4x Lava Spike
4x Crack the Earth
4x Ethereal Haze
4x Blessed Breath
4x Spiritual Visit
4x Glacial Ray
3x Ire of Kaminari
---Lands
5 Mountain; 8 Plains; 4 Wind-Scarred Crag; 4 Boros Garrison

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Whoa, Kami of False Hope would be *perfect* in my hypothetical Sacrifice Sisters deck. I was originally going to stock the deck with foglikes to begin with to help protect my life if needed, but it's a creature that can attack and can be killed off to deal damage and prevent it at the same time!

[Iryan]

Hehe, nice. May I suggest Blood Seeker, Deathgreeter, Unruly Mob, Court Street Denizen (assuming you have ways to instantly generate tokens), or even Thief of Hope (if you have multiple spirit creatures or even other arcane spells, and Kami of False Hope is a start)?
Assuming the deck is only BW, from what you said so far.


The arcane deck has a bit of a fog thing to it as well. Mixed with burn and aggro-control, depending on what exactly you draw and what your opponent is playing. Amass a few cheap arcane spells in your hand while holding the board with cheap creatures, use Kami of False Hope, Ethereal Haze, Waxmane Baku and Blessed Breath (and chump-blocking spirit tokens if necessary) to hold off enemies' attempts to kill you, while splicing on additional spells to keep you from running out of creatures, control the board with direct damage, or just blast the enemy in the face. Then you finish off your slowly worn-down opponent with a combination of Ire of Kaminari, Glacial Ray, and Lava Spike.

One nice thing is that basically all the cards have low cost, so you can play them early if you have to, but since you can splice them onto each other you don't really run out of cards as the game progresses, since you usually only play >one< arcane spell each turn, just with a bunch of stuff spliced on to it. If you get manaflooded you get wrecked pretty hard, but that is not really unique to this deck, so yeah.  :V

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Blood Seeker and Deathgreeter are exactly what that deck needs, and I was considering Unruly Mob myself! You just saved this deck from being just an idea.

But it's a really stalltastic deck though, since I need Deathgreeter and Shrivel to pull the combo off. That's what the lifegain and fogs are for, I suppose!

[commandercool]

You also might be able to do something similar with Disciple Of The Vault, who isn't banned surprisingly. I guess all of the degenerate stuff with him involves rarer cards.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

More or less, yeah. Build an affinity deck, put down Atog and Disciple, and sac all of your artifacts to power Atog up, which will deal damage from the Disciple, and then you can swing or Fling Atog for the win.


The first deck I have built, however, is Grixis (let's be real, the only black thing is Gurmag Angler) Delver Blitz.

4x Delver of Secrets
4x Kiln Fiend
4x Nivix Cyclops
4x Gurmag Angler

4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Ponder
4x Preordain
4x Slip Through Space (I forgot this actually works as a cantrip!)

4x Lightning Bolt
4x Temur Battle Rage

4x Swiftwater Cliffs
4x Dismal Backwater
6x Island
4x Mountain
2x Swamp

Dunno how I feel about the manabase yet, but the deck itself is solid as fuck. Comboing is super easy and unlike the traditional deck, which uses Temur Battle Rage as the sole wincon, Slip Through Space works as an additional (though less effective) one.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Picked up a few cards in what I hope will be one of my last "expensive" MtG purchases for a while. I decided that I'm spending way too much on this and it's just utterly absurd that I'm trying to compete with a bunch of $600+ decks in Modern that are copied from finely tuned GP winning decks and it's just... dumb.

So I think I'm going to drop out of the Modern running. I'll still play with my Flicker Control deck-- may as well, since it's more or less done, outside of the Fetch/Shock lands that could improve it, but I don't think I'll be investing in much more. I'd still really like to finish my Soul Sisters deck sometime too with some Serra Ascendants, Archangels of Thune, and Rangers of Eos, but I think I'll just be trading for those with cards I pull from packs/prereleases. (A pack here and there won't hurt, and my luck seems to be pretty decent for super rare stuff, so someday I may get something I don't want and is valuable that I can trade off.) But I'm tired of dumping enough money into a handful of cards that I could, you know, use to buy groceries and such. Not that I am spending above my means, mind, but it's still really unnecessary.

ANYWAY, all of that said, the few cards I bought were not necessarily for Modern, no-- it's for Standard, because with my nice draws from prerelease/random packs, I have a really solid setup for Game Day. Maybe. So I'm modifying my Flicker deck for Game Day play.

4x Hedron Crawler
4x Eldrazi Displacer
4x Reflector Mage
3x Hanweir Militia Captain
3x Eldrazi Skyspawner
3x Mist Intruder (may be dropped, they were originally there for card exiling as fuel for Blight Herder. who I dropped after I realized it's "when you cast" and therefore not flickerable)
2x Archangel Avacyn (the star of the deck, of course)
1x Thought-Knot Seer (not the most efficient thing, but works as a pinch flickerable hand breaker)
1x Linvala, the Preserver (because I don't have 3 Avacyn, and she's heavily flickerable, especially since this is a slower deck and the lifegain is more than welcome-- and the angel tokens would help too!)

1x Sorin, Grim Nemesis

2x Declaration in Stone

2x Anguished Unmaking
3x Eerie Interlude (super underrated card! Multiple flicker at instant speed; block attacks with your ETB cards and flicker them so the attacks miss AND a bunch of ETB triggers occur at endstep!)
4x Essence Flux

1x Invocation of Saint Traft (because I dunno. Might be nice. I have another if it works well.)

1x Westvale Abbey (there's a decent amount of creature generation, so if I can throw this down, Ormendahl is a solid wincon)
8x Plains
8x Island
4x Caves of Koilos
2x Shambling Vent
1x Warped Landscape

Sideboard:
2x Wall of Resurgence (huge flickerable wall that turns lands permanently into 3/3 elemental land creatures-- that I can keep dumping counters on when flickered? Yes please. May even play this in modern)
2x Mizzium Meddler (Kind of a pseudo-flickerable Spellskite? He can be flashed in!)
3x Enlightened Ascetic (More flickerbait that has ETB destroy enchantments. Because I'm predicting a lot of human token decks with Cryptolith Rite and FUCK THAT)
1x Eerie Interlude (may as well toss it in)
2x Spatial Contortion (could be a useful buff/kill spell)
1x Matter Reshaper (Unsure of this one, but it could work okay? I'm imagining using it to bring Displacer/Skyspawner/Reflector Mage back?)
1x Hanweir Militia Captain (in case 3 is not enough)
3x Stasis Snare (more removal. Flashable!)


Any inexpensive modification ideas would be greatly appreciated!

[commandercool]

Oh shiiiit I hear my store just got some Kill La Kill sleeves in. They're white with the same art from the Weiss Schwarz Chibi Ryuuko art. They're pretty expensive, but I had then pull three packs for me. I'm going to put a Weiss Schwarz deck in one and set the others aside for some future Commander deck.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

We didn't get enough people at my LGS last night for a normal draft so we wound up doing a 5-player Conspiracy draft instead.

I was first to get eliminated but I got some sweet cards out of the draft like Reflecting Pool, Smallpox, Decimate, and Fires of Yavimaya. 

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Picked up a few cards in what I hope will be one of my last "expensive" MtG purchases for a while. I decided that I'm spending way too much on this and it's just utterly absurd that I'm trying to compete with a bunch of $600+ decks in Modern that are copied from finely tuned GP winning decks and it's just... dumb.

So I think I'm going to drop out of the Modern running. I'll still play with my Flicker Control deck-- may as well, since it's more or less done, outside of the Fetch/Shock lands that could improve it, but I don't think I'll be investing in much more. I'd still really like to finish my Soul Sisters deck sometime too with some Serra Ascendants, Archangels of Thune, and Rangers of Eos, but I think I'll just be trading for those with cards I pull from packs/prereleases. (A pack here and there won't hurt, and my luck seems to be pretty decent for super rare stuff, so someday I may get something I don't want and is valuable that I can trade off.) But I'm tired of dumping enough money into a handful of cards that I could, you know, use to buy groceries and such. Not that I am spending above my means, mind, but it's still really unnecessary.

ANYWAY, all of that said, the few cards I bought were not necessarily for Modern, no-- it's for Standard, because with my nice draws from prerelease/random packs, I have a really solid setup for Game Day. Maybe. So I'm modifying my Flicker deck for Game Day play.

4x Hedron Crawler
4x Eldrazi Displacer
4x Reflector Mage
3x Hanweir Militia Captain
3x Eldrazi Skyspawner
3x Mist Intruder (may be dropped, they were originally there for card exiling as fuel for Blight Herder. who I dropped after I realized it's "when you cast" and therefore not flickerable)
2x Archangel Avacyn (the star of the deck, of course)
1x Thought-Knot Seer (not the most efficient thing, but works as a pinch flickerable hand breaker)
1x Linvala, the Preserver (because I don't have 3 Avacyn, and she's heavily flickerable, especially since this is a slower deck and the lifegain is more than welcome-- and the angel tokens would help too!)

1x Sorin, Grim Nemesis

2x Declaration in Stone

2x Anguished Unmaking
3x Eerie Interlude (super underrated card! Multiple flicker at instant speed; block attacks with your ETB cards and flicker them so the attacks miss AND a bunch of ETB triggers occur at endstep!)
4x Essence Flux

1x Invocation of Saint Traft (because I dunno. Might be nice. I have another if it works well.)

1x Westvale Abbey (there's a decent amount of creature generation, so if I can throw this down, Ormendahl is a solid wincon)
8x Plains
8x Island
4x Caves of Koilos
2x Shambling Vent
1x Warped Landscape

Sideboard:
2x Wall of Resurgence (huge flickerable wall that turns lands permanently into 3/3 elemental land creatures-- that I can keep dumping counters on when flickered? Yes please. May even play this in modern)
2x Mizzium Meddler (Kind of a pseudo-flickerable Spellskite? He can be flashed in!)
3x Enlightened Ascetic (More flickerbait that has ETB destroy enchantments. Because I'm predicting a lot of human token decks with Cryptolith Rite and FUCK THAT)
1x Eerie Interlude (may as well toss it in)
2x Spatial Contortion (could be a useful buff/kill spell)
1x Matter Reshaper (Unsure of this one, but it could work okay? I'm imagining using it to bring Displacer/Skyspawner/Reflector Mage back?)
1x Hanweir Militia Captain (in case 3 is not enough)
3x Stasis Snare (more removal. Flashable!)


Any inexpensive modification ideas would be greatly appreciated!

I ended up buying some Cryptolith Rites anyway oops

[commandercool]

Yeah, I ended up buying a couple anticpating them going up. Typically I'm bad at calling this stuff, but they weren't too expensive and I could maybe use them some day even though I can't right now.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I dunno how my deck is going to perform in practice now that I put them in-- that's why I'll be playtesting it tonight at FNM.

Honestly, I don't care all THAT much. I just want a healthy sendoff to my excessive spending habit. After this, I'll be focusing on Pauper and wish-list things only. That is to say, I just want to finish my damn Soul Sisters deck. So a playset of Serra Ascendants, a playset of Ranger of Eos, 2-3 Archangels of Thune, and 2 more Path to Exile. I won't be getting Auriok Champions because they're too fucking expensive for too little value-- honestly, I'd just run Suture Priest or Hanweir Militia Captain-- and if I ever do magically get some, I'm not keeping them. Some Leyline of Sanctity would be nice, too.

Oh, and maybe a Sen Triplets for EDH building.

And none of this has to come at once.

[commandercool]

I've got tons of Commader staples, many of them from a former Sen Triplets deck, layibg around, so if you ever do get around to building one maybe we can trade and save you some money. I didn't keep any of the expensive stuff, but I would kind of recommemd against spending big on Commander anyway.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I'll keep that in mind, for sure.

But for now!

I pulled the trigger on 4x Serra Ascendant, 4x Ranger of Eos, and 2x Archangel of Thune.

They're coming home. My most desired Modern deck will be more or less complete (aside from some cheapass <$1 cards that I'll pick up later.)

[commandercool]

I think I've tweaked my Mazirek Commander to the point where once I can get him in play and keep him in play for a couple of turns I can usually do very well. May need to cut some stuff for more Darksteel Plate and Whispersilk Cloak type stuff to protect him, but I don't know what I would cut.

Unfortunately he tends to win big when he wins, and I'm noticing that means people single me out early in the next game no matter what I play. My last two weeks of Commander went exactly like this:

I play Mazirek, sweep the first game relatively uncontested. I switch decks, then get ganged up on and killed in the first fifteen minutes of the second game by someone who thinks they're far enough ahead to finish off the remaining players quickly, but they're wrong. The game proceeds to last for ninety more minutes after I get knocked out, I sit there playing Fire Emblem, then the worst player at the table wins because the better players are focusing on each other and let them get out of hand.

I guess we play at my house so if somebody should get hated out in the first 20% of the game it should be me. I can just get up from the table and go about my business. :V

[MatsuriSakuragi]

The cards incoming begins. First Archangel arrived today. Picked up a few deck staples like Squadron Hawk and such, and a few sideboard entries like Sundering Growth, Rule of Law, and Kor Firewalkers.

Also grabbed a couple Aven Mindcensors after I realized that not only could I really screw things up for fetch/scapeshift users, but they could also fit well in my flicker control deck.

And finally, some bright pink sleeves and perfect fit sleeves for double-sleeving. This is the one deck I wanna go all-out for.

I'm also considering a red variant that runs some burn spells, Purphoros, and Norin the Wary as well, for a ton of life/damage triggers.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

And finally, some bright pink sleeves and perfect fit sleeves for double-sleeving. This is the one deck I wanna go all-out for.

Double-sleeving? They got to you too didn't they

I'm also considering a red variant that runs some burn spells, Purphoros, and Norin the Wary as well, for a ton of life/damage triggers.

You might also want to look into Impact Tremors or Outpost Siege as other ways to stack up damage with flicker effects. Lightning Helix would also be a good fit, as it's a red-white dual-color spell that gives you a decent life swing in your favor.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Well, this is by far my most expensive deck and will probably be my most played one, so I figured it'd be best to keep them in the best condition possible (especially after last FNM when some ass grabbed my deck to cut and riff-shuffled it-- my Avacyns were in there!). What I was not aware of, however, was how much air builds up in the sleeves, so the slightest pressure on the deck more or less makes it all explode, sending cards flying out from the sides. I do hope that stops being a problem.


And sure, why not? I'm not 100% sold on mono-white sisters after all, I wanna play around with the deck and make it unique. I'd also add Boros Charm for versatility as well, but otherwise pack some bolts and rip them to pieces. I also considered a green variant that packed things like Melira for infect disabling, or a black variant with more kill/control spells and Vizkopa Guildmage, who combos super well with the Martyr of Sands as a wincon. Also, Killing Wave-- build up a ton of life and spend a lot of it to boardwipe and kill my opponent.

[commandercool]

Also, Killing Wave-- build up a ton of life and spend a lot of it to boardwipe and kill my opponent.

Just keep in mind that's boardwipe OR kill your opponent, and they get to choose.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I would only really be playing it when the result would overall be the same. Either they die to the wave or my imminent attack after it.